Where I'm Calling From

talking, Mr. Carlyle. Sometimes it’s good to talk about it. Sometimes it has to be talked about. Besides, I want to hear it. And you’re going to feel better afterward. Something just like it happened to me once, something like what you’re describing. Love. That’s what it is.”
    The children fell asleep on the carpet. Keith had his thumb in his mouth. Carlyle was still talking when Mr. Webster came to the door, knocked, and then stepped inside to collect Mrs. Webster.
    “Sit down, Jim,” Mrs. Webster said. “There’s no hurry. Go on with what you were saying, Mr. Carlyle.”
    Carlyle nodded at the old man, and the old man nodded back, then got himself one of the dining-room chairs and carried it into the living room. He brought the chair close to the sofa and sat down on it with a sigh. Then he took off his cap and wearily lifted one leg over the other. When Carlyle began talking again, the old man put both feet on the floor. The children woke up. They sat up on the carpet and rolled their heads back and forth. But by then Carlyle had said all he knew to say, so he stopped talking.
    “Good. Good for you,” Mrs. Webster said when she saw he had finished. “You’re made out of good stuff.
    And so is she—so is Mrs. Carlyle. And don’t you forget it. You’re both going to be okay after this is over.”
    She got up and took off the apron she’d been wearing. Mr. Webster got up, too, and put his cap back on.
    At the door, Carlyle shook hands with both of the Websters.
    “So long,” Jim Webster said. He touched the bill of his cap.
    “Good luck to you,” Carlyle said.
    Mrs. Webster said she’d see him in the morning then, bright and early as always.
    As if something important had been settled, Carlyle said, “Right!”
    The old couple went carefully along the walk and got into their truck. Jim Webster bent down under the dashboard. Mrs.Webster looked at Carlyle and waved. It was then, as he stood at the window, that he felt something come to an end. It had to do with Eileen and the life before this. Had he ever waved at her?
    He must have, of course, he knew he had, yet he could not remember just now. But he understood it was over, and he felt able to let her go. He was sure their life together had happened in the way he said it had. But it was something that had passed. And that passing—though it had seemed impossible and he’d fought against it— would become a part of him now, too, as surely as anything else he’d left behind.
    As the pickup lurched forward, he lifted his arm once more. He saw the old couple lean toward him briefly as they drove away. Then he brought his arm down and turned to his children.

Feathers

    This friend of mine from work, Bud, he asked Fran and me to supper. I didn’t know his wife and he didn’t know Fran. That made us even. But Bud and I were friends. And I knew there was a little baby at Bud’s house. That baby must have been eight months old when Bud asked us to supper. Where’d those eight months go? Hell, where’s the time gone since? I remember the day Bud came to work with a box of cigars. He handed them out in the lunchroom. They were drugstore cigars. Dutch Masters. But each cigar had a red sticker on it and a wrapper that said IT’S A BOY! I didn’t smoke cigars, but I took one anyway. “Take a couple,” Bud said. He shook the box. “I don’t like cigars either. This is her idea.” He was talking about his wife. Olla.
    I’d never met Bud’s wife, but once I’d heard her voice over the telephone. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I didn’t have anything I wanted to do. So I called Bud to see if he wanted to do anything. This woman picked up the phone and said, “Hello.” I blanked and couldn’t remember her name. Bud’s wife.
    Bud had said her name to me any number of times. But it went in one ear and out the other. “Hello!” the woman said again. I could hear a TV going. Then the woman said, “Who is this?” I heard a baby start up. “Bud!” the woman called. “What?” I heard Bud say. I still couldn’t remember her name. So I hung up. The next time I saw Bud at work I sure as hell didn’t tell him I’d called. But I made a point of getting him to mention his wife’s name. “Olla,” he said. Olla, I said to myself. Olla.
    “No big deal,” Bud said. We were in the lunchroom drinking coffee. “Just the four of us. You and your missus, and me and Olla. Nothing fancy. Come around seven. She feeds the baby at six.